Day 5b

Damn, this bag's a lot heavier than I thought! I had planned to just walk like normal. I'd heard of a small town about a day northeast of me, and I was heading there to trade, rest, resupply. But it's just starting into evening now, and both of my shoulders are killing me. Tried switching the satchel from one to the other, so each could rest... didn't work as well as I'd hoped. So, I'm going to make camp early tonight, and rest. Tomorrow, I'll strap the satchel onto my backpack, and then pick up my pace to make it to that town by nightfall. Might make things more awkward if I have to fight, since I've spent time making my backpack as balanced as I can, but I ain't leaving this satchel behind if I can help it. There's too much value in it, and it could really help some folks out.

So, while I lay here, warm and toasty by the fire, full of roasted shrew and corn, I'll elaborate.

I've spent more time with Dyers, so I'll start with them. First thing: Ugly as sin. I've seen people retch and even throw up from their first sight of one. I can't really blame them, and I call some Dyers friends. They look like their name implies, like they started dying and they ain't done yet. Some people turn into Dyers, some young Dyers have kids. No matter which way it happens, it starts off about the same. First, their hair starts falling out, in big, random clumps. Then the skin starts growing lesions and boils, until they cover most of the body. Turns them either really red and inflamed-looking, or really pale. Either way, it's not pretty, and it's only the start. Sometime after that, their skin starts just falling off, often large chunks at a time, and it can sometimes take things like their nose or ears with it. After a while, they just start to look like a skeleton with just the muscle and tendon barely holding them together. At that point, their minds start to go, too. It begins with them losing their memories, and ends with them being little better than just predatory animals. And for some, it happens quicker than others.

But everything comes with a trade-off, I guess. The good part is, the whole process can take a while. A long while. I spent some time with a Dyer doctor who claims he was alive when the Cataclysm happened, and he said it was over a hundred years ago. He remembers when the bombs blew, the sky turning to red, then black as the ash and smoke covered everything. After that, he ducked into a hidden shelter, under the research lab where he worked.

According to him, the Dyer state is a mutation of an old disease, something called cancer. Before the Cataclysm, it apparently attacked the body by turning parts of it against itself, turning whole organs into cancer. One of its biggest causes was radiation, he said, but now we live in a world soaked in radiation, where a strong wind can make old light bulbs flicker to life. He said his research shows that a Dyer is almost nothing BUT cancer now. Like, they have every kind that used to exist, all at once. And that instead of killing them by shutting down an organ or two, all the cancers work together and hold each other together.

Or something like that, anyway. I've never been real good with things like that, and I'm trying to quote something someone told me about a year or so ago.